Youth Organizations

Following the model of the Soviet Union, the BCP put massive
resources into its party youth organization when it came to power.
Officially called the Communist Youth League of Bulgaria (later the
Dimitrov Communist Youth League of Bulgaria) and abbreviated to
Komsomol, the league sought to ensure that proper socialist values would
pass to the next generation and to supply new members for the party.
With a peak membership of 1.5 million in 1987, the Komsomol had the same
organizational structure as the BCP, with a secretariat and executive
bureau analogous to the Politburo at the top and a pyramid of local and
regional sub-organizations. Besides instilling party dogma in Bulgarian
youth, the organization was a vehicle for enforcing party directives, a
source of reserve personnel, an organizer of social and recreational
activities, and, in the 1980s, an instrument for encouraging computer
training in the schools. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the Komsomol's lack
of self-confidence was revealed in a series of party meetings, speeches,
and programs aimed at explaining and combatting apathy and materialism
in Bulgarian youth. By the late 1980s, the Komsomol was widely seen as a
hollow facade; between 1987 and 1989, membership dropped by 30 percent
after compulsory registration ended in secondary schools.

Immediately after the overthrow of Zhivkov, alternative youth groups
began to form. One such group, the Federation of Independent Students'
Unions (FISU), gained support by advocating complete separation of
student groups from the BCP/BSP and its ideological constraints and by
proclaiming itself a student voice on questions of national policy. FISU
gained stature by being a charter member of the UDF.

Meanwhile, the Komsomol acknowledged past failures, changed its name
to the Bulgarian Democratic Youth (BDY), and began issuing policy
statements on student rights and broader social issues. The organization
was decentralized by giving local affiliates substantial autonomy, and
democratized by limiting the terms of officials. Election of a political
unknown, Rosen Karadimov, as first secretary was another signal that the
youth organization had broken with conventional communist party
practices.

The BDY was overwhelmed by a wave of student activism in alternative
groups. Student strikes in support of the anti-Lukanov labor strikes in
late 1990 shut down major universities. And, like the BSP, the BDY faced
reminders and accusations of its misdeeds in the prereform era. In late
1990, the BDY returned to the state much of the property the Komsomol
had accumulated during decades of BCP funding. It also renounced
socialism and recast itself as an apolitical social organization.